Copyright to Extend to Clothing Designs?

The NYT covers the debate raging in the U.S. fashion industry over whether a 3 year period of copyright protection ought to be extended to clothing design. Reasonable people can disagree, I suppose, but to my mind it is odd to see the fashion industry presented as a case of creativity suffering because of a lack of economic incentive. From a layperson's perspective, there seems to be no outward indication that creativity is dysfuctional in the fashion industry – indeed, it seems instead to be bursting with innovation and creativity – perhaps because of the absence of copyright protection?